What are cookies?

Cookies are pieces of information sent by a web server to store on a web browser so it can later be read back from that browser. This is useful for having the browser remember some specific information.

What are they used for ?

An example is when a browser stores your Passwords and User ID's. They are also used to store preferences of start pages, both Microsoft and Netscape use cookies to create personal start pages. Common cookies which companies use are find info are listed below:

• Online Ordering Systems
  An online ordering system could be developed using cookies that would remember what a person wants to buy, this way if a person spends three hours ordering CDs at your site and suddenly has to get off the net they could quit the browser and return weeks or even years later and still have those items in their shopping basket.
• Site Personalization
  This is one of the most beneficial uses, let's say a person comes to the MSNBC site but doesn't want to see any sports news. They allow people to select this as an option, from then on (until the cookie expires) they wouldn't see sports news. This is also usefull for start pages.
• Website Tracking
  Here is a hot button! A lot of people think it is an invasion of privacy, if a web site designer wanted to see what interests them. Site tracking can show you "Dead End Paths", places in your website that people go to and then wander off because they don't have any more interesting links to hit. It can also give you more accurate counts of how many people have been to pages on your site. You could differentiate 50 unique people seeing your site from one person hitting the reload button 50 times.
• Targeted Marketing
  This is probably one of the main uses of cookies, they can be used to build up a profile of where you go what adverts you click on, this information is then used to target adverts at you, which they think are of interest, companies also use cookies to store which adverts have been displayed so the same advert does not get displayed twice. Double click's use of cookies.
• User ID's.
  In Internet Explorer 3.0 the first part of the cookie is your win95 log in name, It's not certain if this is passed on to the server.

Security

An HTTP Cookie cannot be used to get data from your hard drive, get your email address or steal sensitive information. Early implementations of Java and JavaScript could allow people to do this but for the most part these security leaks have been plugged. But HTTP Cookie can be used to track where you travel over a particular site.

This site tracking can be easily done without using cookies as well, using cookies just makes the tracking data a little more consistent.

How to enable and disable cookies

Explorer 4.x

• Select "View | Internet Options..." from the main menu.
• Change to the "Security" tab.
• Select "Custom" and click "Settings..."
• Scroll down to the "Security" section.
• To enable: Select "Always accept cookies"
• To disable: Select "Disable all cookie use"
• To get a prompt: Select "Prompt before accepting cookies"
• Click "OK"

Explorer 5.x

• Select "Tools | Internet Options..." from the main menu.
• Change to the "Security" tab
• Click "Custom Level..."
• Scroll down to the "Cookies" section.
• To enable: Set "Allow cookie that are stored on your computer" to "Enable" Set "Allow per-session cookies" to "Enable"
• To disable: Set "Allow cookie that are stored on your computer" to "Disable" Set "Allow per-session cookies" to "Disable"
• To get a prompt: Set "Allow cookie that are stored on your computer" to "Prompt" Set "Allow per-session cookies" to "Prompt"
• Click "OK"

Netscape 3.x

• Select "Options | Network Preferences..." from the main menu.
• Change to the "Protocols" tab.
• Navigator 3.x does not have an option to completely disable accepting cookies.
• To get a prompt: Check "Accepting a Cookie" under "Show an Alert Before"
• Click "OK"

Netscape 4.x

• Select "Edit | Preferences..." from the main menu.
• Select "Advanced"
• To enable: Select "Accept all cookies" or "Accept only cookies that get sent back to the originating server"
• To disable: Select "Disable cookie"
• To get a prompt: Check "Warn me before accepting a cookie" and select "Accept all cookies" or "Accept only cookies that get sent back to the originating server"
• Click "OK"